In a bit of a random trade on Friday, the Colorado Avalanche announced they had traded forward Tomas Tatar to the Seattle Kraken for a fifth round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.

Tatar, 33, got off to a miserable start with the Avalanche, scoring 1 goal and adding 8 assists in 27 games for Colorado.

In fairness to Tatar, however, part of that drop in production is related to a drop in ice time. Tatar is averaging 11:17 in ice time per night, a full 3+minute drop in ice time since his first full-time NHL season in 2013-14.

It’s a trade that likely will help out both teams, and the player himself.

Seattle adds someone who has a proven ability to score for a very minimal cost. Colorado clears out a roster spot and some cap by shipping out Tatar’s $1.5 million deal to the Kraken. And Tatar gets a chance, likely with more ice time, to turn his season around up north.

Normally, I wouldn’t publish anything about a trade like this, which has no ramifications for the Pittsburgh Penguins whatsoever. With that being said, Tatar was at one point incredibly linked to the Penguins in the offseason, making what his season has been to this point very interesting.

A simple google search for “Tomas Tatar Penguins” will result in a plethora of articles from August and early September about the possibility of Tatar going to the Penguins. You’ll even find an article I published on the topic as well, though I think you’ll have to stumble onto page eight or nine on Google before you find anything we publish.

At the time when I wrote about Tatar, I thought he would be a pretty good middle six addition for them. From that piece:

“He has good hands and good speed, and maybe most importantly, is durable. He played a full 82 games last season, and the season prior played 76. 

Tatar will turn 33 mid-season, so he is not necessarily a young addition to the ageing Penguins, but he is still very productive even as he enters his 30s. 

Last season in New Jersey, Tatar put up 20 goals and 28 assists for the Devils. The +/- stat is controversial, but Tatar was a +41 last season with the Devils, an evident sign he was doing something right. 

He’s great as a middle-six forward, and could slot in very well on either the second or third line, the latter of which could use some serious help based on some lineup projections. The Penguins lacked secondary scoring last season, and even after all the additions to the forward core this offseason, Tatar would be the biggest upgrade in terms of depth scoring.”

The picture I painted of Tatar as a free agent was a bit more rosey than what actually ended up happening. In the end, he signed a one year deal with the Avalanche on September 12th. He was joining an excellent forward core in Colorado, one that might have been hard to break into.

Tatar to the Penguins went from a pretty safe bet, to quickly fading away, as the Penguins salary cap continued to crunch and Tatar seemed more and more out of their price range.

A lot of articles talked about how the Penguins could get the cap space needed to sign Tatar. He was coming off a deal with the New Jersey Devils that carried a cap hit of $4.5 million. His new deal would have had to be lower for virtually any team, the question was just by how much, and who was willing to spend it on him.

It appeared the best the Penguins could do was offer him a professional try out, something Kyle Dubas proved he loved handing out to interesting players. However, a PTO paled in comparison to anyone who was offering him a concrete deal.

Tatar’s season has been disappointing to date, but writing this now makes me wonder what he would have done in Pittsburgh instead. I don’t blame him at all for taking the guaranteed money, I would too, but it is a wonder.

I’m not saying he would have been an offensive juggernaut, but could he have done better than 1 goal and 8 assists in 27 games?

Maybe, but we’ll never know.

(Featured photo by David Zalubowski / The Associated Press)